Spring 2017 Crafter's Competition - Gear Design Contest

Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter's Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.

In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry must be wielded! In this follow-up contest, we want you to design the most powerful weapons and armor you can muster, as we will be judging partially on stats and strength of the armor crafted.

As we receive submissions, they will be announced on Twitter and Facebook with eventually a gallery of all submissions on Facebook. If we get enough of them, we may make this a regular quarterly crafting event!

GEAR SET MUST INCLUDE...

• Crafted Weapon
• Crafted Offhand Equipable if 1-Handed weapon chosen above (ex. Shield, another 1-handed weapon, etc.)
• Crafted Complete Armor Set (Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Legs, Boots, and Shield (if applicable))
• Cloaks and accessories optional

SHOW YOUR WORK!

To confirm your crafty crafting skills, we require a submission with the following screenshots:

1. Close-up of each item showing detailed stats and the maker’s mark (you can cut/paste each of the item shots into a collage that fits within a properly sized complete image, or if you don’t know how to do this, submit them individually as a list group for easy reference)
2. Distance shot of the item/itemset with UI and you shouting in chat “Spring is in the air!”
3. Distance shot of the item/itemset WITH AND WITHOUT UI in a combat/action setting (make it look good with you front and center of any action and backdrop!)

SCREENSHOT QUALITY

• Resolution: Minimum of 1920x1080, and always in 16:9 aspect ratio (you can trim if necessary).
• Quality: Use in-game settings to their maximum, no post-screenshot alterations allowed.

WINNERS & PRIZES

All screenshots must be placed in a single response posted here. Deadline to submit is 11:59pm CT end of the day on Tuesday, March 7th. Only one submission per individual or group!

Include in your submission the following items:

• All screenshots with the requirements above
• A 200 words or less introduction of you and your crafting experience

Prizes will be awarded on a tier basis. 1st place will be awarded $100 in store credit, $50 for 2nd place, and $25 for two runner-ups. Winners will be announced at the start of the Spring Telethon on March 9th around 12:30pm CT.

Have fun crafting!

RULES & GUIDELINES

Since this is a value based contest, a committee of judges will be formed at Portalarium, and any tie breakers will be resolved by the committee. Any disputes or disagreements in the community on who ultimately won will NOT be tolerated as an open discussion in the forums, but sent a private e-mail to support@portalarium.com. Anyone attempting to subvert the contest in any way is subject to an immediate suspension and/or disqualification from the contest.

Inappropriate/Vulgar submissions are prohibited and will also result in immediate disqualification.

Submissions containing any of the following are considered inappropriate:

• Sexual content or references
• Disparaging race/gender/group of people
• Drug/alcohol abuse
• Death/suicide of persons real or fake
• Graphical bugs
• Depicting the state of the game in a negative manner

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON, PLEASE SEE COMPLETE RULES FOR OTHER RESTRICTIONS. THIS IS A SKILL-BASED CONTEST. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. AFFIDAVIT OF ELIGIBILITY / RELEASE OF LIABILITY / PRIZE ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT MAY BE REQUIRED.

 

Sweet. I can't wait to see what people come up with.

 

Whats the rules for enchants/masterworks? You can enchant or masterwork somone elses gear withotu removing thier maker's mark

 

*removed*

 

Well, shouldn't you write about the purpose for your gear and why you think it's powerful for that purpose?

 

*removed*

 

Why have you excluded shields ? My character uses a shield all the time.

 

There is no exclusion for shields in the original post above.

 

I'd like some additional clarification on the scoring criteria if possible.
I mean, are we looking at combat effectiveness? Rarity of materials? Level of enchant/masterwork?

Something like bone armor, for example, would be more a measure of someone's adventuring prowess, than anyhting to do with crafting, as it is 100% about the ability to solo dragons, demons, phoenixes etc. or how much money someone's got to throw at it. Enchanting/masterworking it to high levels with the extremely punitive breakage rates again is simply a matter of "throwing more money at it."
I guess my concern is that if I can't solo dragons, demons, etc and can't throw hundreds of thousands of gold at it (as crafting currently has no profitability whatsoever due to material costs) is it still worth entering this sort of contest? I'm not trying to be negative, just don't want to invest a lot of time/materials/gold on something if someone can waltz in with two million gold in obsidian chips and brute force a set of +12 obsidian armor.

If the above is a non-issue then, can it be clarified does this need to be a 'new' set purpose crafted for this contest, or can it be existing gear?

 

Thanks all for the feedback! I've added a note about shields, and hopefully clarified about the 'power' of a set. We definitely want you to work to design the most powerful in statistics that you can... this will be a big part of what we will look at.

So it will be less important in the scene, if you say can't get somewhere to show off the armor, than the armor itself... but if you can do both, that works too.

 

removed

 

I don't think the concern that was made was about where the screenshot will be taken and/or what monster will be killed with the gear. I think the concern was that people who can solo the high end monsters will have an easier time acquiring the rare materials (dragon bones, phoenix talons, obsidian chips, etc.) that are needed to make some of the more exotic items.

I agree that it's all about those who have excess gold to spend on an endless supply of materials to replace the destroyed items when pushing the limits on Enchanting and Masterworking.

All of these factors lead to giving the elite combat oriented a big advantage over even the most dedicated, highest skilled crafters. Sadly, the crafting system in SOTA is a game of who can make the most attempts and survive the most amount of destroyed items before getting what you want... not who knows how to make the best stuff.

While I do love the idea of a crafting related contest and I don't want to sound like I'm against it... it doesn't necessarily give the best crafters the best odds of winning.

 

Daxxe - you said that a lot more eloquently than I could, thank you.

That's why I more or less wanted clarification on criteria - as with some of the other contents like deco contest etc, there were key achievables, ie different themes etc.

I wasn't sure if the same sort of thing would apply, ie best archery set or if there were aesthetic bonuses for the mix/match of types . If its purely about who can afford to blow up the most pieces, well, us crafters are not the ones with the monies. lol. Happy to lend my skills to someone who needs a high lvl enchanter tho.

 

I can't see how people who don't have high skill levels can even hope to win. My best work can't compete with the "meh" stuff some of the people in our guild produce.

 

It would be nice to see a true skill-based contest, like a logo design contest or something similar.

Something which would show the true artistic skills of our community, and even further the progress of the game with its results.

 

I'm happy to donate the chips needed for a set of Obs armor for the competition, if I can have the armor when it's over.

 

Personally, I really like this contest because it provides incentives to the community to produce the best possible items in an effort to win the contest. I'm interested in seeing what the best stuff looks like and how common that stuff really is.

But I do agree with your point (and others) that this contest really highlights where our crafting system is lacking (there's no player skill required to be successful). On a positive note, this is partially due to the fact that the system is not finished yet. Regional recipes have not been implemented, for example.

Still, I think your comments are spot on, the crafting system does leave quite a bit to chance, but also to the same grinding mechanics that make one successful in combat. At some point I hope we take a hard look at improving both of these areas so that player skill is as much a factor in success as character skill.

 

I agree. I was just excited to see what people produce. I'm not going to enter myself because my crafting skills are too low but I don't see that as a negative point for this competition.

 

Just a few more days until the contest ends! Submit your entries here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...crafters-competition-submission-thread.80338/

 

Damn it Berek, I was hoping with 4 prizes available and only 3 entries we would win by default (by far the best way of winning)